Body Piercing

By Dr. Modena Wilson and Dr. Alain Joffe and Dr. Modena Wilson and Dr. Alain Joffe,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | April 15, 1997

My 15-year-old son wants to have his tongue pierced. We think this is kind of extreme. Should we let him?When we first sat down to begin answering your question, we thought we'd have to rely on what we knew about tattooing, which shares certain characteristics with body piercing. Then we came across the January 1997 issue of AAP News, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and were pleased to see a lengthy article about body piercing.As with getting a tattoo, the major risk associated with body NTC piercing is one of infection.

In my opinion, there is nothing that says, "Look at my NOSE!" like a glittering gemstone in a pierced nostril. I see a lot of adorned noses, but I can't imagine getting one. Not that they are not attractive on the rare individual with flawless skin and a sculpted proboscis, but the Janet's World Institute for Facial Statistics reports that, for 71.9 percent of us, the nose is not our best feature. If anything, I might consider getting some other part pierced to divert attention from my nose.

Although I'm not certain what the "mainstream" is, I've always thought I was part of it. Family, home, mortgage, job, dog, beer, pizza, Cub games, button-down shirts, stained ties, minivan, Ping golf clubs and a nerdy watch.But now I have serious doubts. Whatever the "mainstream" is, I appear to be outside of it.I realized this the other day when I read a news story in the New York Times.The headline said: "Body Piercing Moves Into the Mainstream."And the story began: "It is easy to pinpoint the moment when body piercing went mainstream.

CHILDREN in adolescence will rebel, and that is as predictable as falling leaves in autumn. When I was a teen-ager, I wanted to pierce my ears, but that was strictly forbidden. My best friend finally persuaded her parents to allow her to get her ears pierced, but her mother insisted that a medical doctor perform the procedure. Ten years later, we wondered what the fuss was about. By that time, even our mothers had pierced ears. Now we know what the fuss is about because there are serious health issues regarding piercing and tattooing.

By Dail Willis and Dail Willis,Eastern Shore Bureau of The Sun | August 31, 1995

OCEAN CITY -- If summer has been hot, body jewelry has been hotter. Rings, loops, studs, bars -- sometimes it seems as if there's not an unadorned, under-30 ear or nose on the Boardwalk.But navel piercing is the hottest of all. That little flash of silver above a bikini or under a crop top has brought a steady stream of teen-agers and young adults with $45 to spend to a piercing shop at Baltimore and Dorchester streets."In the month of June, I did over 300 navel piercings," said Melissa Adams, who owns Shock Value.

WHEN MY daughter was born, her father gave me a pair of pearl stud earrings as a celebratory present: a lovely gift, but loaded, because my ears weren't pierced, nor did I want them to be.It was an early lesson in compromise. I had my ears pierced, but drew the line at having our child's nose pierced, despite his firm contention that within our lifetimes nose-piercing would be a widely accepted practice in our culture, perhaps even the norm.It shows what a visionary I'm not. Noses were just the tip of the iceberg, after the more probable earrings on men. I've heard more tales of pierced anatomies than I've seen in person, but I've seen enough, even in beautiful downtown Annapolis or quiet Shady Side, to know that my former husband had a better understanding in 1962 of cultural challenges and peer pressures JTC than I do even now. And while I fail totally to understand that sort of self-expression, the middle-aged preppie at my core admits to an ounce of envy at the boldness of those who risk it.Meanwhile, I've never regretted having my ears pierced, though I did hold off letting my daughter do it until she was 16. Then it was I who nearly fainted at the grand event.

At first glance, Eric Poland looks like any other non-conformist in his mid-20s. His hair is long, his clothes are black and a bit grungy, and his attitude is low-key and congenial. Pass him on the street, and you probably wouldn't give him a second glance.Unless you notice his jewelry. Or, more specifically, where he wears it.Poland is a body-piercing enthusiast. In addition to eight earrings (four in each ear), the 23-year old has had his septum, nipples and navel pierced. He knows that some people find his interest bizarre -- he mentions a neighbor who wouldn't talk to him because, she said, "I thought you were a Satan worshiper" -- but shrugs off most such comments.

OCEAN CITY - Considering she was leaning against a counter filled with sterilized equipment that she had just used to thread a bar through a customer's ear, Aileen Kwirus had a surprising reaction to this week's vote by the Ocean City Council that could ban body piercing here. She thinks it's a good idea. The piercing industry in this resort community "is going down," said Kwirus, who had already decided to close down her shop. "I'm leaving for my reputation." A registered nurse, Kwirus said her business was being smeared by the proliferation of piercing parlors in the back of T-shirt shops.

Her adult friends counseled her against it, calling it shabby and warning that it would make her look cheap. "Why destroy yourself?," they asked. "Why make yourself look like someone you're not?"But Carolyn Turner had younger friends, too, and she found it harder and harder to relate to them. That changed the day last January she went ahead and got her eyebrow pierced, hanging a dime-sized golden ring with a tiny ball in the new hole."It opened up doors," she says. "It was cool."Turner, a Pasadena hairdresser, is 53. Her decision to style herself in what has been mostly a young people's fad shocked her daughter and her friends and affronted her customers, some of them religious.

For the swarms of teen-agers hitting the Ocean City boardwalk this month, getting a nose, navel or tongue pierced has never been easier. As other East Coast resorts have restricted body-piercing businesses over the past few years, many operations have moved into this beach town, driving up the number from a handful to more than 20. The explosive growth is raising concerns among authorities about the industry, from underage piercing to sanitary conditions and...

By Elizabeth Large and Elizabeth Large,SUN RESTAURANT CRITIC | September 6, 2001

When general manager Larry Shyman says that he's never seen a sports bar like the new Coliseum in the Cranbrook Shopping Center in Cockeysville, I believe him. It has 92 televisions (no, that's not a misprint), two separate bars, a dance floor and DJs Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. There's seating for 310. Customers have been going there to eat, not just drink, during the Coliseum's first couple of weeks of existence. There's a separate nonsmoking dining room where people can get steaks hand-cut in the restaurant's kitchen and dishes like "gator bites," made from fresh alligator flown in from Florida.

The plug in April's pierced navel is shiny as a new quarter and fitted with a ring on the end, much like a drain stopper. She likes it, she said, and added that when that part of her body is visible around the office where she works as a secretary, it's a "big attention getter." There's also Penny the musician, who wears a metallic spike -- a big toothpick, of sorts -- stuck through the underside of her nose, as if to question how much distance really divides a contemporary industrialized human from some prehistoric version.

AS body-piercing for self-adornment gains in popularity, finding fans even among the middle-aged, the practice is coming under greater legislative scrutiny. In various jurisdictions, that skin trade has been licensed, limited by rigid zoning, restricted to health professionals and even banned. After health regulation, most of the public attention has focused on requiring minors to get parental consent for these permanent, body-altering procedures. Baltimore County is the latest to take note, with proposed legislation that makes it a crime to do body-piercing of minors without a parent's written permission.

OCEAN CITY - Considering she was leaning against a counter filled with sterilized equipment that she had just used to thread a bar through a customer's ear, Aileen Kwirus had a surprising reaction to this week's vote by the Ocean City Council that could ban body piercing here. She thinks it's a good idea. The piercing industry in this resort community "is going down," said Kwirus, who had already decided to close down her shop. "I'm leaving for my reputation." A registered nurse, Kwirus said her business was being smeared by the proliferation of piercing parlors in the back of T-shirt shops.

For the swarms of teen-agers hitting the Ocean City boardwalk this month, getting a nose, navel or tongue pierced has never been easier. As other East Coast resorts have restricted body-piercing businesses over the past few years, many operations have moved into this beach town, driving up the number from a handful to more than 20. The explosive growth is raising concerns among authorities about the industry, from underage piercing to sanitary conditions and...

Her adult friends counseled her against it, calling it shabby and warning that it would make her look cheap. "Why destroy yourself?," they asked. "Why make yourself look like someone you're not?"But Carolyn Turner had younger friends, too, and she found it harder and harder to relate to them. That changed the day last January she went ahead and got her eyebrow pierced, hanging a dime-sized golden ring with a tiny ball in the new hole."It opened up doors," she says. "It was cool."Turner, a Pasadena hairdresser, is 53. Her decision to style herself in what has been mostly a young people's fad shocked her daughter and her friends and affronted her customers, some of them religious.

AS body-piercing for self-adornment gains in popularity, finding fans even among the middle-aged, the practice is coming under greater legislative scrutiny. In various jurisdictions, that skin trade has been licensed, limited by rigid zoning, restricted to health professionals and even banned. After health regulation, most of the public attention has focused on requiring minors to get parental consent for these permanent, body-altering procedures. Baltimore County is the latest to take note, with proposed legislation that makes it a crime to do body-piercing of minors without a parent's written permission.

Prompted by complaints from parents and concern about the possibility of infection, the state health department has adopted regulations requiring tattoo artists and body piercers to use disposable gloves and needles and to get parental consent before working on minors.The regulations, which take effect immediately, also require people performing "skin penetrating body adornment procedures" to clean the skin before and after the work, use face and eye protection if splashing of fluids is likely and provide written care instructions.

'Lessons, not talent'FROM THE dance floor of Surfside 7 in Edgewater, where couples trip the light fantastic to music by the Crabtowne Big Band on Wednesdays: Dave and Gay Shepardson of Annapolis, who design web sites for Dalmatian Co., come to the Surfside because the band plays music suitable for the Lindy hop, a 1930s dance craze (named for Charles Lindbergh's solo "hop" across the Atlantic) that's back in vogue."He was the worst dancer in Annapolis when I met him," Gay said of her husband.

By Dr. Modena Wilson and Dr. Alain Joffe and Dr. Modena Wilson and Dr. Alain Joffe,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | April 15, 1997

My 15-year-old son wants to have his tongue pierced. We think this is kind of extreme. Should we let him?When we first sat down to begin answering your question, we thought we'd have to rely on what we knew about tattooing, which shares certain characteristics with body piercing. Then we came across the January 1997 issue of AAP News, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and were pleased to see a lengthy article about body piercing.As with getting a tattoo, the major risk associated with body NTC piercing is one of infection.